San Francisco

My month in the States is almost over, damn TIME FLIES when you're having fun!! So here's an update about my days in San Francisco! 

After walking the dogs on the Bulb in the morning with Andy, I said goodbye and left to SF. 

I couldn't feel more at home finding a street named Annie :)  

My first two nights I spend sleeping on a very comfortable couch in the Mission at Dina's place. I couldn't have wished for a better first CS host on this trip, she is incredibly nice :) 

Dina took me to yoga classes both nights and that was AWESOME, because i've been missing yoga a lot. But find it hard to do it by myself. 

The Mission is a very nice and artistic neighborhood with little stores, bars, bakeries, used book stores,

etc. A lot of Mexican and Central American families moved to this neighborhood in the 50's, so there is a big Latin community. The neighborhood is famous for it's beautiful murals, like the one below that is made on a wall of The Women's Building (http://www.womensbuilding.org/content/).

The next day i visited Alcatraz, something I needed to see of course, being in SF. It was a beautiful day with a lot sun (i have been VERY lucky with the weather in SF and NY). That was a bit of a contrast, being in the sun, enjoying an island with a great view of SF, knowing the history of the island. In the prison you do an audio tour where former inmates, guards and family members who lived on the island tell about there experiences in the prison or on the island. 

At a certain point prisoners were allowed to do things to distract themselves. One of those things was crochet! See here the nice pink blanket :)

One of the things that almost all the inmates mentioned was the fact that they could see and even hear the SF city life. It was torture to them that the city was so close but not reachable to them. 

After staying in the Mission I moved to Richmond, a neighborhood between the Golden Gate bridge and the Golden Gate Park. I stayed with Lora and Kevin an had a blast with them! Lora didn't have work the whole week so we spend a lot of time together. The first day we drove around and got to see all kinds of things in SF. She's actually from San Diego, so a lot of things were new for her as well. First we went to see a house that is decorated with furniture that seems to be falling from the windows. It is done by a local artist named Brian Goggin and the project is called Defenestration (which means 'to throw out of a window). Very cool!

And this one is for you, lieve Dak, I see them everywhere :)

One touristy but nice thing is the row of Painted Ladies (term used for the Victorian and Edwardian houses painted in 3 or more colores that make the houses seem higher and more beautiful) that were used in the opening scene of the serie Full House. Love these type of houses!

A friend we made in the park.

A hat shop in Haight-Ashburry, an artistic and nice neighborhood with a lot of 2nd hand clothing stores. 

A Amoeba music store, where i would have spend a lot of money if i lived there :) A nice band i discovered is Tune-Yards!

http://826valencia.org/store/about
http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html
watch the documentary to learn more about how the project started and where they are today. It's really interesting!!

Another MUST SEE was the Golden Gate bridge. 

Always love making pictures of people making pictures :)

Crossing the bridge at sunset!

Coffee and bagels the next morning. Even my coffee was very happy, look at him smiling :) 

We got a discount for bringing our own cups,  do you recognize the KeepCup Karlijn?!  

I didn't want to spend money on the famous trams, but it was nice to see them.

Lombard street, wish i had a scooter to cross up and down this street.

Some grandpa loving in the Golden Gate Park :)

A very 'original' license plate. 

Ice cream. She had so many cool tunes in her truck!

Academy of sciences Nightlife. Once in a while they open this museum at night. We saw some exotic animals. They had a lot of crazy frogs, like the one in the picture below. The orange things are his legs.                              

 We got to see ' Life: a cosmic story' in the Planetarium, which was amazing!!

In honor of the SF beer week (could i have chosen a better week?!) they had sample brews from local masters, very good! The cups were a bit small though...

After the nightlife they dropped me off in the Castro neighborhood, where i was staying with Jenner for a night. As everybody knows San Francisco is known as the gay capital of the States. In SF the gay neighborhood is the Castro, and that's hard to miss because of all the rainbow flags everywhere.

In the morning we hiked on a mountain behind Jenner's house and with the amazing view he showed me where all the areas are. I'm so bad in directions... But this gave me a pretty good idea of where everything was.

That day i went to a park in the neighborhood North Beach to enjoy the sun and nice music. Where ever i go i just love doing this: sitting, drinking coffee and watch people.  

At night we went to a bar called Johnny Foleys, where they only play requests from the audience. 

They played Great balls of fire, Harry! Good memories of your birthday :)

The last day in SF, having lunch in the harbor, playing around and seeing the WAVE Organ. 

All concrete pipes that are supposed to make a lot of noise. But it's only when the tide is high, so we actually didn't hear a thing. Do think it's worth visiting, but just make sure that you go on the right moment.